Smart wallets date back a few years, but adoption has been speedy. According to Statista, 49% of Americans were smart wallet users in 2017 while the number of near field communication (NFC) users (Apple Pay, Google Pay) numbered a whopping 64 million. Widespread tho it be, we haven’t begun to realize the potential of this technology. As cryptocurrency becomes even more common, there is opportunity to hyperautomate currency and payments, managed by IDWs.

Imagine you buy a board game from an online game store using cryptocurrency. The purchase goes swimmingly, but the company sends Settlers of Catan instead of Trivial Pursuit. You chat with a customer service IDW who brings in a human counterpart to assist. You are patient while they correct the error and initiate a new shipment. Not only would your in-the-moment kindness boost your customer score, but the company might thank you by passing some crypto your way. If you entered the transaction with a high customer score the crypto “thank you” may well be higher.

This concept applies to businesses, too. Harkening to the notion of the social credit score from above, if someone with a history of harassing customer service is rude to a representative, the company can compensate the rep with a cryptocurrency “thank you” for dealing with a verbally abusive customer. With some sort of governing system in place, businesses would also be able to recognize abusive behavior from consumers and leverage appropriate measures, like filing a grievance and lowering their customer score. While this could be a boon for small businesses that often feel helpless against unjust Yelp! and Google ratings, the idea of a customer score invokes a powerful lever for a capitalist society run by massive corporations. As with all of these hyperdisruptive ideas, it’s crucial that the implications of powerful technology are acknowledged and designed around.